Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Rise of a Legend has opened to Rs 64.85 crore net in India on its first day, the second-biggest opening of 2026, according to trade tracker Sacnilk. The mythological epic, starring Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Ram, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Yash as Ravana, hit theatres on Thursday, 5 November, and drew packed houses across the country on the first day of the Diwali weekend.
The film’s India gross collection on day one stood at Rs 77.50 crore. The Hindi version led the way with Rs 47.50 crore from 20,678 shows, with the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada versions making up the rest across a total of 25,201 shows. Only Dhurandhar 2, which opened to Rs 102.55 crore net earlier this year, has done better on day one in 2026.
The opening caps a pre-release run that was extraordinary by any measure. Advance bookings for the film crossed Rs 130 crore gross in India, with more than 36 lakh tickets sold before a single show began. For Thursday alone, advance bookings were worth Rs 50.08 crore including blocked seats, or Rs 42.96 crore without them, from 12.14 lakh tickets.
Directed by Tiwari and produced by Namit Malhotra, Ramayana is the most ambitious Indian film of the year — a two-part retelling of the epic, with music by AR Rahman and Hans Zimmer, and a cast that also includes Sunny Deol as Hanuman and Ravi Dubey as Lakshman. The film has been released in five languages, and its scale — in budget, visual effects and marketing — has been compared with the biggest event films Indian cinema has produced.
The question now is whether the film can sustain the opening through the weekend. Trade analysts note that advance bookings for Friday, 6 November, stood at Rs 22.25 crore, with Saturday at Rs 24.77 crore and Sunday at Rs 16.09 crore, suggesting a strong four-day run. The Diwali weekend, with the festival itself falling on Sunday, 8 November, is traditionally one of the best windows of the year for a big release.
Competition is real. Suriya’s Scene opened on Friday, 6 November, with advance bookings of its own past Rs 8 crore, and Nayanthara’s Mookuthi Amman 2 is also in theatres this weekend. But Ramayana’s first-day numbers put it in a league of its own for now, and the film’s word of mouth — particularly around its visual effects and the performances of its three leads — will decide how far it travels from here.
For the industry, the opening is a reminder of what the theatrical business can still do when a film arrives with genuine event status. After a year of mixed results at the box office, the Diwali weekend of 2026 has begun with a number that exhibitors will be quoting for months.
